Four alumni selected to the Wayne State University Engineering Hall of Fame

Three male and one female distinguished alumni of Wayne State University have been selected for induction to the Wayne State Engineering Hall of Fame. The alumni are Doug Szopo, of Northville, Mich., a Ford Motor Company executive; Tobenette Holtz, of Huntington Beach, Calif., an aerospace engineer manager; Laxmi Narayan Bhuyan, of Riverside, Calif., a professor of computer science and engineering; and Paul Sgriccia, of Livonia, Mich., an engineering manager for an international engineering services firm.

The four will be officially inducted at the Night of the Stars, the college's annual celebration and fundraiser honoring those who have contributed to excellence in the field of engineering. Saturday, Oct. 2, at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Holtz, BSAeroE'59, is a retired manager with TRW Incorporated in San Bernardino Calif., where she worked with clients on site in both the Los Angeles area and in New Mexico. Previously in her career she was a project engineer and staff engineer at various other California-based aerospace companies, including the Aerospace Corporation, the Acurex Corporation, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Northrop Corporation, and at North American Aviation where she started her career in 1954.

Szopo, MSIE'78, is executive director of Global Product Planning & Strategy for the Ford Motor Company, a position he was appointed to in February 2007. During his 30-plus-year career with Ford, he has held a variety of positions in manufacturing, product engineering, and business planning. Most notable of these prior positions was plant manager of the Dearborn Engine and Fuel Tank Plant, design manager for Duratec Engine, and pre-program manager for Advanced Powertrain Systems Engineering.

Bhuyan, PhDEE'82, is a distinguished professor and chairman of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California at Riverside (UCR). Prior to joining UCR in January 2001, he was a professor of computer science at Texas A&M University (1989-2000), and program director of the Computer System Architecture Program at the National Science Foundation (1998-2000). His research interests are network computing, multiprocessor architectures, router and web server architectures, parallel and distributed processing, and performance evaluation.

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